Forgotten Promises
by mathkid
Summary: ...Wendy was married in white with a pink sash. It is strange to think that Peter did not alight in the church and forbid the banns... Peter Pan, by J. M. Barrie. Why didn't Peter come?


**Title:** Forgotten Promises

**Rating:** K+

**Summary:** "Wendy was married in white with a pink sash. It is strange to think that Peter did not alight in the church and forbid the banns." -- Peter Pan, by J. M. Barrie. Why didn't Peter come?

Wendy smiled at the young man across from her and demurely cast her eyes downward, looking at him through her lashes, because she knew this was what a proper English lady who had been given such a handsome offer should do. It was not, she reflected, that she disliked Edmund James Barrie; quite the contrary! she found him a charming boy. But he was only a boy, and she was only a girl, and most of all she was not ready to grow up. At seventeen, her mother thought her quite grown up, and so Wendy pretended to be, but inside she was a child, and she knew it.

That night, she threw herself on her bed and cried bitter tears so hard she could not breathe, and she fell asleep with only a tear-stained pillow and the moon for company.

While she slept, she had a dream.

In her dream, she was crying on her bed, as she had been doing only a few hours earlier. While she wept, she felt the soft touch of a hand on her shoulder, and with the hand came a soft voice. It said:

"Wendy, why are you crying?"

Wendy stilled immediately and lifted her head to bestow a tremulous smile upon the young golden boy hovering just by her. He still had all of his first teeth.

"Hello, Peter."

But Peter was not one to abide by formalities, and he pressed the issue.

"Is something terribly wrong, Wendy?"

Wendy sat up, brushed the tears from her face and told Peter, "Not yet, Peter." Wendy strove to put a brave face on her personal catastrophe. "I am to be married in two months."

Peter did not seem to be quite as shocked or horrified as she over this, only curious.

"Married?" he asked with childlike inquisitiveness, settling down beside her. She noted that she was nearly a full head taller than him, and while his feet dangled a fair distance from the floor, hers touched it. "What is that?"

"It means," Wendy said solemnly, "that I would finally have to grow up."

Peter was properly shocked and horrified by this pronouncement, and said so. Then he brightened and exclaimed:

"Come away with me, Wendy!"

Wendy smiled sadly at Peter and explained that it was not quite so easy as all that.

"You see," she told him, "I have certainly grown up on the outside. Am I not too old for the Neverland?"

In response, Peter flew to hover directly in front of Wendy, and she fancied she could hear his heartbeat against the dark stillness of the night. He looked intently at her, and she felt with very slight resentment that an apparent nine-year-old had no business gazing into her eyes as if he could read her very soul. Then Peter laughed.

"Why, Wendy!" he said, still laughing. Peter had never lost his first laugh. "You are just my size on the inside. And you can never be too old for the Neverland as long as you are not grown up inside."

Wendy could feel hope blossoming within her at his words. It bubbled up inside her and reached her eyes so they shone in the moonlight.

"Peter," she gasped, "do you mean I could fly away with you to the Neverland? Again?"

"If you wish it," little Peter replied.

"Then," Wendy said excitedly, "why can't we go now? At once!"

Peter looked at her as if she were a very small child and had asked why she could not run or jump just after she had broken her leg.

"Dear Wendy," Peter said affectionately, "don't you know you are still asleep?"

"Are you sure?" Wendy had not known, and she thought Peter might be mistaken.

"Of course I am," Peter replied with a smug grin, and Wendy saw that he had not lost any of his cockiness in the five years since she had last seen him.

"But then," Wendy pressed, "you will come for me sometime? When I am awake? Before I get married?"

"I promise," Peter said with a smile that showed all of his first teeth and melted her heart. "I will come for you soon, Wendy," he said, and he flew out the window.

Wendy woke the next morning with a smile on her face. She was, in fact, astonishingly cheerful as she and her mother prepared for her wedding, because she knew Peter would come for her.

She even enjoyed picking out her wedding dress, which was a beautiful white gown with a pink sash. Peter did not like grown up things, of course, but he had been at fairy ceremonies and had a proper appreciation for beautiful clothes on occasion. Wendy thought her wedding gown was as close to a fairy gown as a wedding dress could possibly be.

Wendy woke up her happiest on her wedding morning because she knew that today was the day that Peter would come for her. She wondered idly if Peter would whisk her away before the ceremony or during it. When he did not arrive during her bridal preparations, she knew that he had chosen the dramatic route.

Wendy was breathless with anticipation by the time she began walking up the aisle. She hoped Peter was hiding somewhere, watching her, and waiting for the right moment to fly her away.

The ceremony began, but Wendy's mind was elsewhere. She vaguely heard the priest ask any objectors to speak now or forever hold their peace. She held her breath, waiting for Peter's voice to ring out, but it did not. So she knew that he was waiting till the last possible minute to intervene, in typical Peter fashion. He so loved to save the day at the last second.

Then at last, she was asked the question to which she knew she must respond "I do," and so she put on her most beautiful smile and gave Peter a second to swoop down from the ceiling in front of the shocked audience to save her. Then she gave him another second.

After the third second, she felt a slow, silent, crash inside her as she knew that Peter was not coming. Perhaps he simply forgot -- Peter was ever so hopeless at keeping track of time. Perhaps -- perhaps, he had only been a dream, a final way for her to cope with growing up. Either way, she felt her heart shatter, although she did not drop her smile. She smiled as she gathered up the shards of herself and put them in a basket decorated with flowers and topped with an acorn, and she kept smiling as she resolved to put away and forget Peter's forgotten promises, and she smiled especially brilliantly as she looked at her new husband and said:

"I do."

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